


would have stayed up with you all night

by magicandlight



Series: The States [17]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers, Statetalia
Genre: Civil War, Gen, Pre-Relationship, i suck as titles as always, not quite angst but not fluff either
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-26 23:35:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20398000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicandlight/pseuds/magicandlight
Summary: The only reason Austin finds Mindy in the aftermath of the battle is that Caden asked him to see if he could find Ginny.For a couple of seconds, he wonders if he should just turn around and pretend he didn't see anything.





	would have stayed up with you all night

**July 3, 1863**

The only reason Austin finds Mindy in the aftermath of the battle is that Caden asked him to see if he could find Ginny.

For a couple of seconds, he wonders if he should just turn around and pretend he didn't see anything. 

Empathy wins out. Austin knows the horror of waking up surrounded by your own dead men.

Mindy's young. It's probably her first death. She's going to wake up, all alone, in the mud, surrounded by her fallen soldiers.

That thought is enough that Austin grimaces and starts gingerly stepping through the fallen ranks of the First Minnesota Regiment.

It was the least Austin could do to dump her into a Union hospital.

They were family once, even if they weren't anymore, and Austin can't imagine the disappointment on Alfred's face if he left her in the decimated remains of her regiment.

Austin scoops her up and freezes. 

She's still alive.

Austin tilts his head and actually observes her condition, pressing his fingers against her throat to feel the thrum of her heart. She's barely conscious, eyes not even open. Her heart's beating erratically, and she's losing blood rapidly from dozens of cuts and bruises that littered her body. She had a gash on her temple from where it looked like the butt of a rifle had been slammed into her head sluggishly oozing blood.

There's shrapnel embedding into her left calf, and Austin swears. 

If he dumps her into a Union hospital, they'd cut it off. Ginny had once told him if you had to regrow a limb, you wanted to be dead.

Austin glances back at her bloody and pale face.

He sighs heavily. "Oh, I am definitely going to regret this."

**July 5**

Mindy is in and out of consciousness and completely delirious the entire way to the Kentucky-Tennessee border. It isn't a good sign, but Austin is a little grateful anyway. He'd stopped in West Virginia overnight to try and patch her up, but there was only so much he could do without a decent medical kit. He'd poured whiskey over the shrapnel wounds to try and keep the infection at bay long enough to get to safety. Mindy had whimpered, but hadn't reacted much besides murmuring some more delirious French. 

There are only a few places that are safe for a Union state in the south, and the old state house on the border is one of them. 

If Kendall and Tim can meet up every couple of months for three years and not get caught, then it's definitely not on Jackson's radar. Plus, because Tim's such an injury magnet, it's probably going to have a decent stock of bandages and hopefully antiseptic that isn't whiskey. 

~~~~~

He makes a mess of the cabinets searching for what he needs, but Austin figures he can clean it up later. Mindy's dying.

It's times like these that Austin really hates his ability. It's also times like these that he's also grateful for it. 

He doesn't heal people often. It takes a lot out of him, leaves him with pounding headaches and nausea and episodes of passing out. He especially doesn't heal personifications. They heal fine enough on their own. 

(He'd healed Evangeline a handful of times, despite his own rules about it. She'd never asked him to do it. The self-loathing part of Austin's mind always insists that he did it out of the selfish need to ease his own guilt that she was hurt in the first place.)

This time he does. He heals the gash on her forehead to save her from a concussion or brain damage, and every time he digs another piece of shrapnel out and tries to cut out the infection, he heals it as much as he can after using so much to fix whatever was wrong with her head. It isn't much. Enough that she won't bleed out, at least.

By the time he's done, he's got a migraine so bad he barely manages the few steps to the couch on the opposite side of the table. 

The sound of Mindy's steady breathing manages to lull him to sleep. 

**July 6**

He startles awake when Tim kicks his feet the next morning. 

Tim surveys the mess of bloodied gauze and shrapnel pieces on the coffee table with a detached expression, but something softens his eyes when he looks at Mindy. "Did you kidnap her? You know, I think Michael could actually take your head off."

Austin stands, his headache flaring with the movement. "She was dying. How did you know I was here?"

Tim shrugs. "Didn't. Just knew there was someone here."

Austin knows Tim means that he was expecting Kendall. 

Tim looks at Mindy again. "You said _was_, right? She's not dying anymore?"

"No."

Tim gives him a weak smile. "Good. I'd like to talk to Cordelia without her murdering me after this war."

**July 7**

Tim doesn't leave. 

Mindy wakes up a few times, but she's still incoherent. 

When she finally does wake up coherent, it doesn't go well.

~~~~~

"You made me a deserter!" 

Out of a lack of other things to throw, Mindy threw a pillow off the couch at Austin's head. 

Tim leaned against the doorframe and sipped his coffee. 

Austin raised his eyebrows. "You would have preferred I left you to die?"

"Yes." Mindy's voice was completely serious, and Austin's eyes widened. 

She wavered on her feet. 

Tim had an arm around her waist before her leg buckled under her.

He glanced at Austin. "I think you should make yourself scarce for a while."

~~~~~

"She's gonna be gone as soon as she can walk, you know," Tim said, leaning against the porch railing beside Austin. "I don't blame her for not wanting to be a deserter."

**July 8**

"You healed me, didn't you."

It isn't a question. 

Austin answers it anyway. "Yes."

"Why." 

Mindy's staring at him when he turns to look at her. "What else was I supposed to do?"

"We took the flag," Mindy says after a few moments of silence. "We all knew it was a suicide charge, that we'd probably all die. But we knew it would buy time, so we did it. Without question. So many of my boys died, but at least we got the damned flag." 

Austin thinks he should be mad about that. About losing the battle, about the war not being in their favor. 

He's too tired to feel mad. And he's not sure he wants to win if it means Jackson will be their nation. 

Mindy picks at the bandages wrapped around her arm. "I'm never going to give that flag back."

Austin laughs, and after a moment Mindy laughs too. 

**July 9**

He's taking out Mindy stitches when he finally works up the courage to ask what's he's been wondering since he left. 

"How's Addy?"

Mindy's silent for a beat. "It was pretty rough for a while. She bled out a few times. We just couldn't get the blood to stop, sometimes." 

Austin nods even as guilt burrows into his chest. He wonders if he could have healed Addy, if he'd stayed. 

"She gets your letters." Mindy murmurs, like she isn't sure she should be telling him that. 

Austin finishes taking out the stitches and rewraps her arm silently. 

**July 10**

Austin comes downstairs and pauses when he sees neatly folded blankets stacked on the couch instead of Mindy. 

Tim's sprawled in the armchair with a glass of something alcoholic. He glances at Austin. "She's gone."

Austin sits in the chair beside him. Tim pours him a glass from the bottle on the table.

"Kid's gonna get herself killed." He sighs out. 

Tim snorts. "Aren't we all?" He mutters, clinking his glass against Austin's. 

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from How to Save a Life by the Fray. it was what I was listening to and I couldn't think of something better.
> 
> the thing about the flag Mindy talks about is based on an actual thing. During the Battle of Gettysburg, the 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment faced 82% casualties during a suicide charge at the 28th Virginia Infantry, but managed to take the 28th Virginia's flag. Minnesota still has it and refuses to give it back, despite Virginians threatening to sue them.


End file.
